


using everything to hold back

by orphan_account



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: (Please), Angst, Blow Jobs, First Time Blow Jobs, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pining, Van Days, the fact i am writing mcr fanfic in 2020 ok this may as well happen, this reads rather bitty just go with it as a broken trail of thought lean into that liminitality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24528550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: a band, a van, two boys
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	using everything to hold back

Though the rain had given up a couple of miles back, the promising cracks of molten blue in the sky's determined grey failed to permeate the muggy hungover-shower-ness of the dubiously watertight van. 

Frank stuck his tongue straight up from his artfully arranged recumbence, tilted at an odd angle to avoid shoes as he stared at the ceiling. He wanted to see if he could still taste the wet tarmac it in the air. The stifling conditioned air, host to a variety of dubious dude fluids was about as grim as one would expect. Sticky. 

That was it. Despite the rare sanctity of motels, and gas station attendants willing to look the other way, no amount of scrubbing under cold showers seemed to remove this top layer of gumminess. A protective cuticle of sweat for the road maybe, building up to callouses on his elbows and knees for when he threw himself across the stage with increasing voracity.  
It was odd. Though not quite a conscious drive for self-injury (he had never been the type), there for sure was some nebulous drive to 'crack.' Something. Some nebulous shell. For any brief forays into literature at Rutgers, Frank was not the one to think in haughty concepts. That was Gerard's game. Frank preferred it visceral and real. Inexplicably, the appeal of dirt under his nails and the slip of blood between his teeth had given way to a slight weight that sat just heavy enough on his chest to ache. He felt out of it.

Dragging the others into reflections on such things was hardly fair when they were all trying to make a go of it. Their tin on four working wheels, fate allowing, was the same shitty living situation for everyone, frustrating and ever too small, even if they all shared the same pulsating cavity of want for what they sought. Otter had been driving far beyond what was his fair share, and Mikey was all right-angles in the front seat. Ray possessed an odd glaze of serenity as he stared past the book that had been sat upon his lap since Ohio. He could see he was on the same page he had opened it to 3 hours ago. Gerard had made himself a rare avuncular pillow; any kindness sure to be efficiently exploited as Frank scrambled into a sitting position, bony knees into soft flesh. 

Ray shot him a warning glance. 

He couldn't help that he got like this. He was antsy, to the point of a running gag of threatening whoever had made a particular embarrassment of themselves the night before having to take Frank on for his following daily walk. It wasn't a deliberate endeavour for chaos. Those were different. Those were enacted with precise intent, and mostly deserved. 

The way he couldn't stop his knee from jolting as if it were reflexive, the way he gently dug his elbows into the sides of anyone in his vicinity, the way there was a glint of the untamed in the whites of his eyes, this was not an active process. He didn't enjoy it any more that his those who became his collateral damage did. The unspoken irritation that would radiate from his bandmates, his friends stuck dry to the back of Frank's throat, only to be dislodged in the catharsis of the night and its show. It sucked. 

Right now Ray had given up transmitting smoke signals in a futile attempt to save his ass before anything kicked off for real, having rolled his eyes and turned back to pointedly not read his book. Gerard's patience was meanwhile wearing thin, as he hilariously attempted to school his face in a manner to reflect any of the supposed maturity afforded by the four years he had on him, merely letting his eyes slip to the side as the corner of his mouth held from twitching too bad. Frank swung his legs up to some sloppy approximation of a lotus, sure to get him booted from even the most amateurish of yoga classes. The cord snapped.

"C'mon. Dude." 

The singer shot a look that verged on pitying, as a giggle, not usually elicited until at least two blunts deep, escaped Frank's mouth. At this angle, almost Dutch as he'd let his head loll onto the broken leather cladding Gerard's shoulder he could see right up his nostrils. 

"I can see so far up your nose from here. Like, there might even be a brain up there if you really squint. Hang on, just lemme-"

An attempt to hook his pointer and middle finger up there to get a closer look was thwarted as Gerard grabbed at his wrist, with perhaps a little more force than was necessary, and was obviously practising calming exercises, traceable under his pallid skin as he positioned Frank's hand firmly into his chest. 

Right. Ok then. 

Flexing his fingers out with more panache than called for, he politely enquired who the fuck shat in his coffee that morning. At which point Brian and Mikey took full advantage of the executive power afforded to front seat, turning the music up to an almost painful level in an attempt to muffle whatever antics happened to be going on behind them. Frank scowled as he settled back to wedge himself into a corner, clearly unwanted. The rest of the drive was occupied via the expenditure of far too much energy on imitating a particularly whiny sentinel, as his temperamental blood fizzed. 

"You're gonna leave a bruise, you fucker," Was the designated opener for the guilt trip, carefully constructed during Frank's period of in-van exile. He tried it as he sidled up to Gerard, who was presently fiddling with a cigarette that refused to stay lit in the hardly-protective tarpaulin porch, tucked to the side of the venue. Every time a promising ember presented itself, the wet got under and smoke plumed. It was pretty entertaining to be honest, and in any other circumstance Frank would have been quite content to watch him curse and stomp his foot like a petulant toddler for a while. But no. 

He felt oddly wrong-footed, as if the surprisingly easy slide into his position in their whole dynamic- that between him and the band, him and the Ways (so many blurred early mornings, making polite conversation with their mother who cut far too much slack), him and Gerard- had been upset. Something had been knocked off its axis, everything was a bit off, and he didn't fucking know how to grasp whatever it was. He didn't know what to make of it, and wasn't really one for delicacy. So the guilt trip it was.

As Gerard glanced up, in consideration of Frank's accusation, the temptation to make the fair argument of the latter's questionable self-preservation skills making any bonus scrapes negligible, and maybe he should try and fucking look after himself for once, flickered across Gerard's face. Frank watched as he tried and failed to iron it out.

Why was he so fucking tense? 

"Sorry about that. Think this road is cooking my brain. I'm really fuckin' tired all the time. Things have happened so fast." He tugged awkwardly on his hair, well past the point of requiring a cut. Now Frank felt horrendously guilty, this was not working as intended. Of course he felt off. Here be weird fucking times. His gut churned. He'd done this, been on the road, navigated the convoluted dynamic of working with your best friends in the pressure cooker of aspiration, longer than the other guys, save Otter. Despite his years he, out of everyone, should be coping. Why did he feel so fucking childish? 

"Don't stress, really!-"

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done it."

The continued struggle to light a cigarette was getting pathetic at this point, so Frank stepped closer to cup his palm around stick as it dangled from its perch in the corner of a crooked mouth, and pulled his own lighter from his pocket to get it over with. A murmured thanks in return. His eyes again flicked up to meet Frank's, and the younger man jerked back as he felt splayed open and vulnerable all of a sudden. The ensuing silence did not help the pressure that was, had been enveloping him, as the raw unmistakable tangle of panic started clawing its way up his throat.

He righted himself and slotted into position, feeling the brick graze his back through his incredibly seasonally-inappropriately shirt, suddenly very interested in sorting his own smoke. Maybe the moment was now. Things were already messy, how much worse could they be? It was going to eat him up otherwise, the sticky pressure of tarmac's heat, and some corrosive bubbling inside rendering him a pile of goo- in no fit state to play guitar.

Gerard has always been an enigma, most everyone seemingly content to pencil in a question mark next to his name. Frank wouldn't even bet on Mikey knowing, for sure, and Mikey knew everything. 

"Gee," he expertly opened, "Have you ever- like- on the road, I mean," Oh god what the fucking fuck was he thinking he could not drop all he had on some potential late-onset hormonal rush. A sharp pull on his cigarette. Gerard flicked his eyes from where they were huddled under a protective nest of hair from the rain, trying to keep up with the change in tone. Frank realised his cig had run down cruelly fast, and murmured a "shit" as it caught at his fingers. 

"Hey." Gerard stepped round so that he was standing before Frank, mercifully shielding him from the rain that had turned into much more of an onslaught. "You ok?" Raising a hand to cup Frank's cold cheek, which he desperately tried not to press his face into. "You know I'm here, always, whatever it is." And he was using that tone, not-quite-a-teacher-but-almost-some-especially-avuncular-tutor but that was zeroed in on Frank, a disgusting amount of attentiveness that shouldn't have worked but really, really did and fuck Frank was only one man-

He should have really asked before kissing him. Leaning up to pull Gerard down, his surprise at the fact he could feel lips moving, hesitantly, but moving, against his own perhaps suggested that this should have been completed with more foresight. This could have gone so wrong. This still has the capacity to become so much worse. 

But neither man seemed particularly aware of the potential vague 'worsenesses' lurking in the corners. When Frank felt Gerard start to bite at his lower lip, an inquisitive nipping-tugging at first, which rapidly descended to the point he was pretty sure he could taste metal, there was no spectre of harm that could stop the simple chant of MORE in its path. 

Frank wouldn't be able to tell you how much time had past by the time his brain managed to work itself into a state of consciousness to alert him to the fact that they were currently rutting what the fuck against a wall, where anyone could see them. It was difficult to connect these vague senses to any actionable outcomes, as Gerard was presently breathing, hot and shallow, at the junction of Frank's shoulder and neck. Frank let out a truly embarrassing whimper as Gerard began to shift against him and ohshit left very little to the imagination with his lax approach to underwear etiquette. 

"Should we maybe do this uh," Frank managed, "Not here."

Gerard managed to disentangle himself the tiniest bit, from where his hands had been occupied fucking up Frank's hair beyond any recognition; the air between the two burning warm and sweet in the pounding of the shower that attempted to get at them. He couldn't believe the fucking smirk on Gerard's face, that was trying ever so hard not to be a smirk but utterly fucking was. 

Poking a finger to jam at the corner of the elder's mouth, Frank's exclamation of how he couldn't fucking believe him died somewhere in the space between Frank's throat and his teeth as Gerard, as if it were as simple as anything, took the finger into his mouth. 

The pop as he released it from between his lips may as well have been freight trains colliding for the effect on Frank's eardrums. He'd never really gotten the physical act of eyes dilating until this point, where everything was fucking hazy and his skin rolled red and the only thing he was even vaguely aware of aware of was Gerard's suggestion, whispered to graze his ear, that they find some place to go.

The bathroom was fucking grim. There was no dressing it up.  
The putty lining the tiles was keyed up and gummy, with nondescript dirt of god-knows-what quality wedged within. It didn't matter. Frank couldn't conceive of a single disruption of the outside world that would knock him off track now- even if his hands were trembling, he was locked in a groove he would otherwise never manage to crawl his way back into. The others could inform him of any alien arrivals, any raptures, any cataclysmic gaping of the ground in thirty minutes time. 

He eagerly shoved Gerard against the stall's wall, impressed by their resourcefulness, having made a quick stop, in which they both looked incredibly flushed and shifty, and were unable to stop giggling as Mikey gave his best I-don't-know-what's-going-on-here-but-know-I-don't-approve look, as he informed them the band was due to start setting up in 40 minutes. 

A luxurious amount of time rolled before Frank, as he only slightly panicked at the prospect of what to fill it with. This triumph was unprecedented, and he worried Gerard may have taken the aborted coming out as more a personal address than a first broaching of the subject. Sure, there had been girls back home, but he was wading into unknown waters here. 

This vague anxiety playing on loop at the back of his mind was, of course, muffled by the squeaking of sneakers on tile, and the littered heaved breaths between an inability to remove their lips from one another. It was gross and messy and Frank didn't think he'd ever get enough of the feeling of Gerard's tongue tracing inside his cheek. 

Gerard muffled a groan, gnawing the back of his hand, as he fisted the other twisted to anchor the side of Frank's head as the latter dropped, rather than sank, to the floor with a painful crack of knees. It was now or never. He tilted his head slightly, mouth agape, to nuzzle at the other's crotch. 

"Oh, Frankie, fuck-," A hiccupping hitched breath as the younger zeroed in on Gerard's awful fucking bat belt, which he scrabbled to undo in a rather un-suave manner. 

"I feel like I'm fucking a goth chick in the back of a Hot Topic," Frank giggled, as a lovingly exasperated 'asshole' was murmured somewhere above his head. 

Finally, finally, something gave and he was able to wrestle Gerard's jeans from his hips. At the same Gerard tried to wiggle them down to a more workable position Frank set to rucking up his shirt, exposing an expanse of pale flesh. 

"God, you're gorgeous. So fuckin' pretty, always wanted to do this," He couldn't stop himself from babbling the words that were far too exposing, overly earnest for a cubicle tryst. But he couldn't not say it. Gerard's head was thrown back against the wall, mouth open in a silent prayer punctuated with hiccupped breaths, even as Frank simply mouthed along his belly. 

He continued to trail his tongue just, achingly, above the line of Gerard's pants, pushing with his tongue and pecking lightly to see where the softness buckled, where the hipbones still poked through. Gerard's hand, which was still tangled in the side of his grown out haphazardly-buzzed hair, tightened as some sound of desperation that might have been any number of words but wasn't any, entered the air as if forcibly pulled from him. Despite of the way he could feel the muscles of Gerard's thighs go twitchy, as spit soaked through his underwear, Frank's mouth remained agape, tongue lolling, as he felt his cock harden rapidly.

"Wouldn't have pulled you in here I knew you were such a fuckin' tease," And Frank was half-tempted to respond with some dumb response insinuating he simply had no way of knowing his attitudes when it came to another dude's dick in his mouth. But that would be showing his hand, and right now hooking his fingers around the trim of Gerard's underwear and lightly tugging down was far more appealing than demonstrating quite the extent to which he had no idea what he was doing.

"Shut up," he breathed more than said, "M'getting to it," And with that, renewed confidence- fuck it fuck it fuck it- had him tugging the final layer of separation away. At once his nerves returned. Gerard's aforementioned distaste for boxers allowing, what was going on down there was less a shock than it could have been. With that being said, "Fuuucking hell," Frank whistled lowly. He would have made some nasal comment of how big he was had it seemed less tacky. 

As it was, the intervals between Gerard little impatient noises becoming smaller and smaller, he experimentally wrapped his hand around the base, attempting some rapid fire mathematical reversal of what felt good on himself, that he really hoped would work, as he started shallowly shifting his hand up and down. Gerard's hand moving to stroke the side of his head, tucking flyaway strands of hair quietly assured him. 

"Jesus Christ, Frankie." When the younger let go for a moment to lick at his hand, broad and accompanied by a cockiness probably unearned. By the time Frank took the head of his cock into his mouth, soft and teasing, the broken fragments he let out were hardly words. He wanted to say a lot. There were things he would always think, and could never ever say. But who was he to complain when there was a beautiful boy at his feet? One who was now gradually working his mouth-lips curled over teeth- further down his cock. 

Gerard could sense a certain timidness in the earnest eye contact thrown toward him, and as Frank worked to relax his jaw to sink further he made sure to let him know just how brilliant he was, how bright and how **good.**

During the show, Frank was electric. No, really. Beyond the usual hyperactive child experiencing both sugar rush and exorcism, it was as if he'd been plugged into the fucking mains. His throat burned. He was hyperaware of how every bead of sweat traversed down from his forehead, tracing his jaw, and sliding down to the soaked collar of his shirt. He had no idea what song he was even playing, but the way he felt as though he were in on a secret anyone would surely kill for, and the way his head felt as he hooked it on Gerard's shoulder to scream, ensured it didn't fucking matter. 

A litany of reasons why not. 

Frank wasn't some naive. 'Don't fuck your bandmates, no, not even that one, not even if it seems a good idea at the time. Really.' was a rule that he'd heard whisperings of being invoked more than you'd expect in the confines of falling apart vans, with testosterone for gasoline. 

"It's not the gay thing at all," Frank would have flinched if he wasn't already wholly crumpled into the wall of the gas station behind him. Wasn't worth the correcting. He just sat and picked his nails. Gerard seemed slightly perturbed at the lack of response, but was never one to lack words. "I think the way people perceive sexuality is fucked, anyway. It's way more fluid than people think." More silence. Now the power source had been severed, it no longer hummed with electric heat. Frank felt the gaping absence of nothingness. He worried he might fall in. 

"Hmm," He hummed in an approximation of agreement. He picked at his fraying jeans. 

"It's just-," Gerard starting working his hands in the expanse of night-air. "We're together all the time. I'm a 'preserve my hooking up and also using each other's dirty coffee spoons for marriage' kinda guy."

Frank wasn't an idiot. He knew to read between the words as Gerard skewed into sermons. He knew Gerard. Fucking dudes was cool, he was open minded. He went to art school. He didn't exactly resent him for not exactly craving to hold hands in fucking Texas. 

"Gerard," Scrabbling in the tarmac to rise to a standing position, staring at his chin. "Seriously. It's fine. I get it. Please don't torture yourself about it." This band was it for him. He hadn't sheepishly smiled at his mother as he continued to take up residency in her house in months. He was travelling the country in a shitty van, screaming until his throat bled. He had what he wanted. 

From his position in the back seat it almost felt as if he was watching one of Gerard's old battered VHS back in his basement, back in Jersey. Far too drunk, too far from himself; verging on hysteria as he shrieked with anger that was somehow more laughter when Mikey spilled his coke and vodka on him again. The camera had been knocked from its purchase and the rolling lines of static worked their way across his backlit form, with the sickening perspective of being knocked from some poor condemned soul's hands in a B movie with lots of fake blood.

**Author's Note:**

> this is the longest fiction of any form i've ever written, please be kind!  
> thank you


End file.
